At the long-term care facility where Robert Rebein's father lands after a horrific car crash, a shadow box hangs next to each room, its contents suggesting something of the occupant's life. In Headlights on the Prairie, Rebein has created a literary shadow box of sorts, a book in which moments of singular grace and grit encapsulate a life and a world.

In the tradition of memoirs such as Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life and Ivan Doig's This House of Sky, these essays bring a storyteller's gifts to life's dramas, large and small. Following his award-winning turn on his...